I've been incredibly disappointed with next-gen football games. Last year's Madden was the "best" but I haven't played it since mid-season.

I've avoided all NCAA games because they just played terrible and the dynasty mode was sub-par compared to the Xbox/PS2 versions.

That being said, the reviews for 11 are pretty damn good. Some places (IGN, Gametrailers, PastaPadre) have said it's the best next-gen football game out there. I played the demo and thoroughly enjoyed it... trying to hold-out for NCAA '12 with the new conference alignments.

Summer classes are interfering with my ability to play NCAA 2011, so I'm only one game into my dynasty. Can't run the read-option to save my life at this point, even when I make the "right" decision there's a decent chance I'm fighting to get back to the LOS.

FWIW, I thought NCAA and Madden '10 were crap. I'm an offline player, primarily, though if enough PS3 users get it I'd be down to do an online dynasty, I hear they've made big changes there.

Playing a dynasty with UNC, since I can't run the UO bread-and-butter play. Some thoughts:

1.) Passing and running are way different than in years past, and that is probably a good thing. Shorter passes are a little tough for me to complete right now, but that could be timing. Deep passes are MUCH easier to complete, which I think was necessary (I hated 88 speed CBs... or LBs... running stride for stride with 97 speed WRs deep on AA) but it might be too easy. My next game I plan to air it out long early and see if the defense adjusts. I had a 3 TD lead when I simmed the game, and while most of the scores came running the passing game got me there.

Running is definitely different. Jukes and the like are much harder to pull off than before, but it's way easier to lean one way and get though a hole that would normally sink you. I haven't been running over people much, but I haven't properly played as a big RB yet either. I could see Wisconsin (John Clay) being a ton of fun.

2.) Some of these ratings are just horrendous. It might be the first time a game has ever shortchanged the Heisman/MVP of a league, but Mark Ingram really took it in the shorts. My starting RB for UNC has 82 speed but 90 agi and acc - I don't think Draughns deserves to be that slow, but okay. My backup RB has 87 speed but 78 acc and agi, and my other RB (my starter, since 82 speed is too slow for a 205lb back) has 95 speed but 80-something agi and 80 acc. (all numbers are estimates) That seems off. Plus, they made Locker pretty slow (74 speed?) when I think he'll run a 4.5 or 4.6 this combine.

3.) Defensively, you have to play your lanes with LBs. I normally excel chasing down runs to the opposite field, but when I played OrSU, Jacquizz was always cutting back inside. I like the realism, but it didn't get him very far most of the time. The fluidity of the game is a huge improvement, though I kind of miss turbo (and still find myself using it half the time by habit, especially since NBA 2k10 uses the same button for turbo).

Looks like the DL might dominate too much, but then again I have the top junior DE and the top senior DT on my line, and the other guys are pretty darn good too, so I am not sure how that works. I was sacked 4 times on 32 passes, a little high since I was playing the short passing game but I'm okay with that. (Played against Illinois)

4.) It was really cool watching my WR try to tip-toe the end zone to bring down a pass I threw just out of his grasp. Sideline catches and stuff will be awesome.

5.) I make a lot of mistakes play-calling. They revamped the whole system and it's a little less convenient for "advanced" players like myself. But I don't think it's bad, just really different. I've done some dumb things just on instinct, though, like calling an 82 yard field goal on 4th-and-inches.

Sarlacc, on comparing .NET to Soccer: And why not? It's a bunch of people running around in circles, feigning pain, and never scoring.

So far I'm digging it. I've played about 5 games with different teams each time. I'm finding that good running teams block much better, teams that run a spread or pass-oriented offense tend to lose their defender quickly so running gets pretty dicey at times.

Haven't cracked Dynasty mode yet, but it's looking pretty sweet so far. Definitely the best football game I've played on next-gen consoles.If you want the rosters with the names of each player, check this out. (PS3 Only)

To get the rosters: From the NCAA 11 menu go to Team Management â€“ Roster Share â€“ Download Roster â€“ Download Roster. Then search the PSN name gamingtailgate.

So in my frenzy, I decided to build my alma maters; my high school football team and my university football team (which was shut down due to budgets). If you're interested in them (it's Rotak's alma mater too); just author search under my username.

I'm happy with how they turned out, wish there were a little more options to play with but I'm taking my university team into the WAC and seeing how they fare.

sammyc521 wrote:So in my frenzy, I decided to build my alma maters; my high school football team and my university football team (which was shut down due to budgets). If you're interested in them (it's Rotak's alma mater too); just author search under my username.

I'm happy with how they turned out, wish there were a little more options to play with but I'm taking my university team into the WAC and seeing how they fare.

Nice!

I made one too, a fake school. Emerald City Smurfs. Last game i put them in the SEC, this time I put them in the ACC (also play as the Ducks in the Pac-10).

Its a good game, another thing I have noticed...it is REALLY hard to get good returns on any kicks. Rediculous. I think my best return through 10 games is that of 40-50 yards (no TD). In the last edition I would have taken it to the house 70+ yards twice by now.

It is also pretty easy to get safeties when the opposing team is within the 5 yard line. Have pinned them back there a total of 7 times thus far and have 3 safeties and a pick 6.

I haven't bought a college game since 08', but I made sure I went out and picked this one up after reading some of the reviews for it. I love it! Nice and responsive, I'm really loving the running game on here- blocking is very well done, even compared to Madden 10.

Teambuilder is awesome, I created my high school as well. Haven't really tried online yet, but that's because my connection isn't the best right now. However, I've heard good things about it.

Also, I downloaded a roster file that has all of the names in the game, so no more HB #32 etc. I highly recommend doing this, it makes it much better... all credit goes to the user "FAIRDALE KINGS" ..... in order to download it, just go to the part where you can download rosters, and put in his user name, as noted.

Just finished out my first year with the Western Washington University Vikings in Western Athletic Conference. Went 11-1 (won the Emerald City Bowl; was really hoping for an at-large big but it went to Boise State [who I beat] and Utah).

Played 9 games and simmed the rest. Lost my first simmed game to WAC Rival the Nevada Wolfpack. I won the WAC because I played an 8-game conference schedule so my one extra win over Boise State game my the conference title.

I recruited throughout the year and I only went after 3-star recruits that were heavily interested in my team. I got one 4-star recruit to help my line and lost out on a few other 4-star recruits that I targeted. Overall I signed 21 3-star recruits that helped me finish with the 24th best recruiting class.

Hitting the off-season and I found out that even though I finished the season ranked #9, I am no where near the top-25 even though that's one of my objectives.

Last edited by sammyc521 on Wed Jul 21, 2010 9:30 am, edited 1 time in total.

Seriously, you signed 21 recruits during the season, wow. I have never signed more than about 8 in any version of the game (usually fill out with 25 after the offseason though). 21 is impressive, way to target people.

I am 4 weeks into the season. I play as Florida, Oregon and my created school (Emerald City Smurfs). After 4 weeks, Oregon is the only team that has recruits signed, have 4 of them thus far. 1 - 5 star, 2 - 4 star and a 3 star. Pretty good thus far. Trying different recruiting strategies.

Oregon I am going after players that want to play for me.

Florida I am going after the best, only players in the top 150, making them all 4 or 5 star recruits.

ECS I am going after needs only. The team has needs at 5 or 6 positions, so trying to get those filled before branching out.

When I play I only recruit athletes at least 1 star better than my school (or just 4/5 star guys once I get really good with the occasional 3 star at a need position) during the season then in the offseason go for guys to fill out the class. That has always been my strategy, haven't gotten into it much this year yet.

Started up my year 2 of my Western Vikings Dynasty. We got absolutely no love from the Coaches or Media poll. We are a 4-star program ranked 28th in pre-season rankings.

I alter my schedule so I face a pretty-good non-conference schedule. #2 Ohio State, Duke (cupcake), UTEP (Rival) and #25 Notre Dame (at the end of the year to mess with their bowl chances).

First game of the year is Ohio State coming to Bellingham. The game does not go according to plan as the Buckeyes march down the field...and get intercepted!!!! After long, grind-it-out drives the Vikings take a commanding lead and Ohio is stuck playing catch-up. My pre-season All-American/All-WAC DE tears up the O-line for key sacks on 3rd down and I prevail with a shut-out....and still get no love the following week in the polls.

Only after I face Duke, who gave me more trouble with their no-huddle offense, do I finally break the top-25.

Recruiting is going well as I've gotten more 4-stars interested in my school but a lot of them favor Western as their 4-6th school. Not getting the love I thought I would; I'm actually competing really heavily with Boise State and they're ahead of me on a few key recruits right now. So far I've only gotten 1 commit in the first 3 weeks. Hoping with 15 guys coming in for a visit in week 5 will cure my ails.

sammyc521 wrote:Started up my year 2 of my Western Vikings Dynasty. We got absolutely no love from the Coaches or Media poll. We are a 4-star program ranked 28th in pre-season rankings.

I alter my schedule so I face a pretty-good non-conference schedule. #2 Ohio State, Duke (cupcake), UTEP (Rival) and #25 Notre Dame (at the end of the year to mess with their bowl chances).

First game of the year is Ohio State coming to Bellingham. The game does not go according to plan as the Buckeyes march down the field...and get intercepted!!!! After long, grind-it-out drives the Vikings take a commanding lead and Ohio is stuck playing catch-up. My pre-season All-American/All-WAC DE tears up the O-line for key sacks on 3rd down and I prevail with a shut-out....and still get no love the following week in the polls.

Only after I face Duke, who gave me more trouble with their no-huddle offense, do I finally break the top-25.

Recruiting is going well as I've gotten more 4-stars interested in my school but a lot of them favor Western as their 4-6th school. Not getting the love I thought I would; I'm actually competing really heavily with Boise State and they're ahead of me on a few key recruits right now. So far I've only gotten 1 commit in the first 3 weeks. Hoping with 15 guys coming in for a visit in week 5 will cure my ails.

Three games in and I've only moved up to #23 in the rankings.

IF you are better at ANYTHING than Boise state, sell yourself against the bronco's. It usually results in a +40-90 for me, and a -20-120 for the team I am trashing. As Oregon I convinced a kid that someone died in the Bronco's weight room, and that ours was state of the art, brand new....He signed the next week.

Defeated Cal in a romp even though they were rated better than me (simmed the game) and I end up having to chase down 4 more recruits to fill out all of my scholarships. Two 4-star recruits give me top-3 grades but it's a fight. I get down to week 3 and I am in the the chase. I forgo all other recruits and give each guy 60-minutes of recruiting love to sway them to come to Bellingham, the Holy Land of the WAC.

Unfortunately... one of my 2-star recruits that I was chasing gobble up my last scholarship and I only end up with one of the 4-star guys. Oh well.

I finish out with the 6th best recruiting class in large part to my eight 4-star recruits and my thirteen 3-star recruits. Eat that Boise State.

I lose my 2-time Bronko Nagurski Award winning DE after he decides to forgo his Senior year and I'm left lying in the lurch. My defense is ravaged by graduating Seniors and I'm left with a super thin core in my secondary.

Luckily, I'm an offensive-minded coach and my major loss on offense is my two outside tackles... replaced by a rookie and a converted guard.

I alter my schedule so I face some heavy competition at the tail-end of the year to ruin the chances of some big-boy BCS schools. I can't get my Strength-of-Schedule over a "B" rating due to hanging out in the WAC.

I open the year up Bye, Nevada, Bye and I don't get ranked until I thoroughly whoop Nevada... even then it's only a 25-rank.

Just picked it up yesterday -- Was dinking around with the Road to Glory thing to get a feel for the controls (I pretty much ended up skipping football games last year). I'm liking things so far (Working on AA with 10 minute quarters for reasonably realistic play numbers in a couple pre-dynasty tweaking games).

Probably fire up a Dynasty with my local Hawgs tonight or tomorrow. (Aside: Somebody recently jacked with the Razorbacks wiki page. It reads, "The Razorbacks, also known as the losers, ...")

Aside: On the 'Things that piss me off about EA' side of things, I'm hearing some -really- bad reviews regarding the long-term viability of Dynasty mode... which is of course where I spend the majority of my game time with these things. From what I hear, by five or six years into a Dynasty, the Powerhouses of the nation are sitting in the B- to C+ range, and a good half of the NCAA is getting routinely dominated by the FCS teams. Kickers routinely missing extra points, WRs with 30-50 ball carrying moves stats, etc.

TravTex wrote:Aside: On the 'Things that piss me off about EA' side of things, I'm hearing some -really- bad reviews regarding the long-term viability of Dynasty mode... which is of course where I spend the majority of my game time with these things. From what I hear, by five or six years into a Dynasty, the Powerhouses of the nation are sitting in the B- to C+ range, and a good half of the NCAA is getting routinely dominated by the FCS teams. Kickers routinely missing extra points, WRs with 30-50 ball carrying moves stats, etc.

Anyone confirm or deny? Any word on patches?

I just completed year 3 of my dynasty, going into the pre-season of year 4.

My team was a solid B+/- across the board and now I'm in C+ in everything except Special Teams. Granted, I am running a user-created team but I've had solid recruiting classes (24th overall, 10th overall and 2nd overall).

Only 5-star recruits will get serious playing time as freshman, unless your depth is terrible (mine is at some positions).

I actually like this because I don't think schools should turn into powerhouses in 1-2 years. I've seen my school and coach prestige go up but that's because I've only lost 2 games in 3 years.

As far as the powerhouses falling... I've seen that with some teams, but the traditional powerhouses are always in the pre-season top-25 and there is some moving around but for the most part I see the same teams ranked. I think it's good to see some turnover. I think it add realism if you look at college sports historically.

As far as recruits and low ratings; unless they're 5-star recruits they won't start on most teams. I had to invest heavily in 3-star recruits my first year and they were all in the 60's. In the offseason, players don't progress more than 5 points overall. I like that everything is more gradual, rather than having guys spike-up 10 points overall just because they're the new starter with no playing time under their belt.

There have been multiple sims done across the board, and while I agree with you on a relative level -- No teams leaping to powerhouses in a year or two -- The overall quality of the league nosedives once all original players are graduated. Most sims have 2016 and beyond with zero A+,A,or A- teams, with the bell curve peaking out in the B and B+ region. Fully half of the teams are in the D to D- range (And getting whomped by FCS teams regularly is just utterly idiotic).

I think the distribution is about right -- 5, 4, and 3-star recruits are to a great extent spot-on. The problem arises from a few things:

* Teams stockpile players rather than target needs. A team will have 8 quarterbacks (Making sure less competitive recruiting teams have jack squat) while starting a 40 OVR running back.

* Skill stats are jacked. Around 2015 or so, check your league rosters. Apparently Kickers are -really- affected. You'll have teams with Kickers maxing out 50KPW/50KAC... while the outside linebacker has 70/70 or something. WRs ball carrier moves are on par with those of offensive linemen. Awareness is stunted across the board.

* Too many 1, 2, and low-balled 3-star recruits (And no 'Hidden Gem' prospects). Realistically, how many 1-star prospects end up getting a four year scholarship to a DIFCS school? You end up having New Mexico State having a top player at 58 OVR while 'FCS-East is trotting out averages in the 65 OVR range'.

An aside to the recruiting issue -- Teams don't recruit to their strengths or play to them. An option team targets the 5-star immobile pocket passer and keeps right on running the option, etc.

TravTex wrote:Probably fire up a Dynasty with my local Hawgs tonight or tomorrow.

Wow you're in Arkansas for a couple of months and you've already abandoned your NM roots?

Just messing with ya, Trav.

I'm bummed to hear about Dynasty progressions. Haven't been able to play the last couple of weeks (probably a good thing since I have a presentation and a paper due tomorrow) but should be able to Friday/Saturday. I wonder if EA will fix it anytime soon.

Sarlacc, on comparing .NET to Soccer: And why not? It's a bunch of people running around in circles, feigning pain, and never scoring.

TravTex wrote:Probably fire up a Dynasty with my local Hawgs tonight or tomorrow.

Wow you're in Arkansas for a couple of months and you've already abandoned your NM roots?

Just messing with ya, Trav.

I'm bummed to hear about Dynasty progressions. Haven't been able to play the last couple of weeks (probably a good thing since I have a presentation and a paper due tomorrow) but should be able to Friday/Saturday. I wonder if EA will fix it anytime soon.

Hah! The loyalty lingered until there actually was a local replacement. I've also become a Suffering Fan of the Royals, as the double-A incarnation plays a couple miles from my house. (They're actually a pretty good team, shockingly.)

Yeah, hoping a patch squares it away, but EA is doing its EA thing and hasn't even acknowledged there's a problem yet. I always wonder how this kind of thing ever gets released. THOUSANDS of people latch on to the problem less than two weeks after release... and it never come up over the nine-month development cycle?

TravTex wrote:There have been multiple sims done across the board, and while I agree with you on a relative level -- No teams leaping to powerhouses in a year or two -- The overall quality of the league nosedives once all original players are graduated. Most sims have 2016 and beyond with zero A+,A,or A- teams, with the bell curve peaking out in the B and B+ region. Fully half of the teams are in the D to D- range (And getting whomped by FCS teams regularly is just utterly idiotic).

I think the distribution is about right -- 5, 4, and 3-star recruits are to a great extent spot-on. The problem arises from a few things:

* Teams stockpile players rather than target needs. A team will have 8 quarterbacks (Making sure less competitive recruiting teams have jack squat) while starting a 40 OVR running back.

* Skill stats are jacked. Around 2015 or so, check your league rosters. Apparently Kickers are -really- affected. You'll have teams with Kickers maxing out 50KPW/50KAC... while the outside linebacker has 70/70 or something. WRs ball carrier moves are on par with those of offensive linemen. Awareness is stunted across the board.

* Too many 1, 2, and low-balled 3-star recruits (And no 'Hidden Gem' prospects). Realistically, how many 1-star prospects end up getting a four year scholarship to a DIFCS school? You end up having New Mexico State having a top player at 58 OVR while 'FCS-East is trotting out averages in the 65 OVR range'.

An aside to the recruiting issue -- Teams don't recruit to their strengths or play to them. An option team targets the 5-star immobile pocket passer and keeps right on running the option, etc.

Yeah I have noticed this especially on the kickers and punters like you stated. I am in year 4 and the top rated kicker to recruit has C- kickpower and D+ kick accuracy. Its crazy! Whats worse is that I to recruit a kicker this year lol. Should of made a recruit....

I might be down, heh. I'm going through a busy patch of work (4 of 5 12-on/12-off), and need to find my stupid ethernet cable so I can give the patches/tuner updates a test drive. I can give a go at the SEC with the Hawgs, but will probably end up in third place or so. *heh* Like I'm gonna take down Alabama?